What Are the Most Important Factors When Applying to College in 2020?
College applications can be overwhelming because it’s hard to know what’s actually important and what you should prioritize. College admissions counselors identify grades, curriculum, and test scores as the top three factors in admitting a student to their school.
Other factors - like the essay, extracurriculars, and recommendation letters - are also important.
What should I prioritize in my college applications?
There are a LOT of factors involved in applying to college, amirite? It’s like the old joke - ask eight different opinions and get nine different answers. It’s tough to make sense of what is actually important - everyone will tell you different things. This article will break down the most important factors when applying to college.
Do standardized test scores really matter?
The traditional wisdom says that GPA and strength of schedule are about 75% of college admissions, and SATⓇ or ACTⓇ exam results are the other 25%. But there is a lot of noise lately about test-optional schools, and a lot of folks feel like standardized test scores don’t really matter. What is the truth, and who is a reliable source?
You may or may not have heard of NACAC - it’s the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and it is respected in the college access world as the definitive authority in college admissions. Your guidance counselor likely attends NACAC conferences, and if you work with a private college advisor, that person will have lots of new information upon returning from conferences.
So when we are thinking about trends in college admission, we look to NACAC for definitive answers. And they are asking the same questions about the importance of standardized test scores in college admissions!
According to NACAC’s 2019 report, “2019 State of College Admission”, “Admission Offices Identify Grades, High School Curriculum, and Test Scores as Top Factors for First-Time Freshmen.”
So college admissions offices still take test scores into consideration, at least for schools which are not test-optional.
Let’s take a look at each of the top three factors, and what you can do to improve them now:
1. Grades
Do you have the ability to make up classes during the summer? Can you do extra-credit work to get your teachers to change your grades retroactively? If so, take advantage. Most kids can’t do this, so if you’re lucky enough to do it, AWESOME!
2. High School Curriculum:
Look at your schedule for next year. Are you taking the hardest level courses your school allows? If you can, call the school during the summer and switch up to the highest level you can handle. Colleges would rather see you pushing yourself and not getting an A than taking all easy classes and getting perfect grades.
3. Test Scores:
Although test scores are typically only 25% of a college’s measure of a student - where grades/difficulty of classes is 75%, this is the only aspect you can directly control. If a school class is hard, it’s difficult to switch out of it if it’s a requirement. But SAT Ⓡ exams and ACT Ⓡ exams - these are easy ways to raise your college admissions profile. Having trouble deciding between the SAT Ⓡ and ACT Ⓡ exams? Alyssa, Executive Director of Socratic Summer Academy, who has been teaching both tests for more than ten years, explains the differences.
If one of those top three is on your list of priorities for getting into the best college that you can, SUMMER IS THE TIME TO DO IT!!!
If you already have a perfect GPA, are taking the hardest classes possible, and have either a 1600 on the SATⓇ exam and/or a 36 on the ACTⓇ exam - or are working on it and are happy with your progress - then let’s go on to the other factors that make up a college application.4. Essay
It’s NEVER too early to start working on your personal statement! Most of the time, your best bet is talking about a significant positive change in your life and what brought it about. Don’t try to make it deeper than it is - admissions folks see right through that. If you speak honestly and from the heart, that usually makes the most interesting essay.
A few tips, based on mistakes I’ve seen made a million times:
Get it all out at once with no worries during an initial brain dump. You don’t even have to use complete sentences. Just get your ideas out - that’s the hardest part.
It’s much easier to write everything at the beginning and cut than to try to get narrative flow, grammar and syntax, and length right the first time.
A million people will look at this and cut it and change it beyond belief. That’s okay - they are making it better!
Here is a list of Common App Personal Statement Prompts. (While this is the list from 2019-2020, it stays very similar from year to year.)
5. Demonstrated interest
Many colleges care about their yield percentage or enrollment rate (the number of accepted students who then choose to enroll at that school.) They also don’t want to waste time and resources on a student that won’t end up committing. Therefore, many schools consider demonstrated interest: showing the school before applying that you are genuinely interested in attending. This can be done in many ways, from taking a tour (they make you sign in for a reason!), to emailing/calling the admissions office with a question, to filling out an interest form online. It can even be as simple as researching specific classes, clubs, or attributes that make the school unique and discussing why you’re excited by them in your essay. This arguably contributes significantly to why admission rates are higher for early applicants - regardless of whether they’re actually stronger candidates, by applying early they’ve shown that they’re likely (or even guaranteed, if it’s binding) to attend. Whatever the method, if you can prove to the school that you’re sincerely interested in them, it can only help!
6. Recommendations
Jot down a list of teachers with whom you had a great relationship - people who “got” you, both in and out of the classroom. These people are more important than you think, because they can speak to your character both as a student and as an individual human - which is what colleges are looking for. No one really knows how important recommendation letters are; of all the things I’ve been told and read, the most compelling is that most recommendation letters don’t matter, because they feel like instances of a template - but a real, heartfelt, thoughtful recommendation letter can make the difference between the maybe pile and the yes pile for an admissions officer.
7. Class rank
Unless you can find a way to change your grades over the summer (see #1 and #2), there is no way to change your class rank. So focus on other things.
8. Extracurricular activities
Admissions officers want to see you go deep in something that matters to you - if that’s singing, get into the elite choir at your school; if that’s newspaper, try to get onto the editorial team. It’s a shift since college admissions in the late 1990s; they would rather see a student who goes deep in a few areas than someone who is a jack of all trades and master of none. Make sure that you are holding an office in clubs you’ve been in for more than a year. Leadership says commitment.
So let’s say you’ve identified, from your priorities, that the mission-critical item is raising your SATⓇ or ACTⓇ exam scores. But you don’t want to spend hours in a classroom flooded with artificial light, a test prep person droning on and on, desks in rows of nine students, and you’re daydreaming in the back, thinking that you’re getting nothing out of this. Don’t worry - you’re not alone. Everyone hates that; that’s why the prospect of test prep is so awful. If you need to increase your SATⓇ test score but you don’t want to have a terrible summer as a result, try a hybrid - an SATⓇ summer camp. Hybrid programs combine standardized test prep with something else, and an SATⓇ summer camp allows you to have a traditional summer camp experience - roasting marshmallows over a campfire and looking at the stars without light pollution, enjoying nature and sitting in front of a beautiful, grassy lake in the sun, meeting people from all over the world, being mentored by teachers and counselors who have gone to some of the most selective schools in the United States - all while increasing your score on the SATⓇ exam.
